The Art of Influence

Two weeks ago I brought up several stories which I call my favorites, and that naturally brought me to the idea of influence. You hear the phrases bandied about often by any creative types–“I consider such-and-such my greatest influence”, as in “As a composer, I find Mozart and John Williams to be my greatest influences” for an example, or directors cite earlier movies that formed their interest in the silver screen.

Certainly, as a writer, I count many, many authors and stories among my influences. All writers generally do–after all, that initial exposure to tales that transport us to other worlds or realities far from our own personal experiences engender the desire in some readers to craft our own. Fredrik Pohl, Harlan Ellison, Harry Harrison, John Haldeman, Doyle, Tolkien, Lewis, Shakespeare etc. all count high on my list of literary inspirations.

But… what about other influences, such as music? Take my first example, with music above. I frequently listen to music while writing, matching the mood/tone with whatever I am trying to write. Umbra (and all of its previous iterations) came flying from my fingertips with an ample dose of Alice in Chains, early Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden pounding in my ears. For my darker fantasy stories like “The Falconer and the Wolf“, one of my favorite bands to get me in the right atmosphere is Dead Can Dance. When sketching notes for The Light of Liberty, I turned to Barry Phillips and his version of “The World Turned Upside Down” along with other American Colonial period tunes.

Are there any more? Of course there are. Many people have incorporated their likes and hobbies into their writing. Some cozy mysteries, for example, are based around knitting. My character Ennid the Havoc and his escapades are influenced by my love of MMA (that’s Mixed Martial Arts for those not yet initiated into its primal awesomeness). My interest in genetics features heavily in Clones are People Two. Even if the things we like aren’t at the forfront, we sometimes insert it in small ways. I love goats (Casey, from Umbra), I think rhinos are awesome and I smith silver (both of which will appear in The Opal Necklace, release date TBD) and I’ve an interest in raptors and falconry.

It’s all very simple–EVERYTHING can be an influence on our creativity, and EVERYTHING should be. It’s from these somewhat disparate ideas and influences that some of our richest “juices” flow.

 

 

Ballad of Armageddon – Music of the End of the World

(Originally posted 5 AUGUST 2009)

Really. There are songs about the end of the world. I’ll tell you about a couple, and you can explore the rest on your own.

Most folks are going to think of hardcore, death metal, or otherwise barely coherent lyrics that may or may not be about apocalyptic forebodings, and the bands themselves acquired the look from The Road Warrior. OrBallad of Armageddon – Music of the End of the World
Really. There are songs about the end of the world. I’ll tell you about a couple.

Most folks are going to think of hardcore, death metal, or otherwise barely coherent lyrics that may or may not be about apocalyptic forebodings, and the bands themselves acquired the look from The Road Warrior. There were bands like Nuclear Assault, whose name said it all. Not all of the great tunes about the end of the world as we know it (not R.E.M.’s end of the world, thanks) come from that corner of the thunderdome.

When I served in the Navy years ago, I had the privilege of meeting all kinds of people from across the entire country I otherwise might not have met. Before the internet and all the social media allowed us to connect with people several thousand miles away at any given moment, this was a huge deal, as they brought with them a lot of influences I might have otherwise missed.

One of these gents with whom I served introduced me to Kate Bush, and I’ve been grateful ever since. Only recently did I find out how her early career intertwined with Pink Floyd, and the album The Wall served as a soundtrack staple for games that didn’t have one, like Wasteland. While I loved her music, I hadn’t really discovered the depth of her subject matter until I found her album, The Whole Story, a collection of songs from previous albums. “Breathing” is the single that addresses the effects of fallout after the bomb.

We’ve lost our chance
We’re the first and last
after the blast.
Chips of plutonium
are twinkling in every lung.

While not technically correct, the song is brilliant and so radical from the rest of the “he loves me, he loves me not” pop crap everyone else out there sang at the time. Her song “Experiment IV” is also worth a note too, not as post-nuclear but as a song about an unusual weapon of mass destruction. (A very young Hugh Laurie happens to be in the video as well.)

Several years ago, a co-worker got me interested in Steve Wilson and his band, Porcupine Tree. The first album he allowed me to borrow, Stupid Dream, featured a song called “A Smart Kid.”

Winter lasted five long years
No sun will come again I fear
Chemical harvest was sown

The reference is to the purported nuclear winter* which would happen in the even of such a conflict, but there is also the reference of chemical warfare. The “kid” later tells aliens who came to visit that he doesn’t know what happened to the people but that there was a war and he “must have won.”

In another vein, my favorite RPG growing up was Wasteland (and they’re finally making a 2!) but it didn’t have a soundtrack so I ended up supplying my own. The Wall from Pink Floyd, Alice in Chains’ Facelift and Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine served and served well.

So, apocalyptic visions exist everywhere one may care to look for them, even in popular music.

*This was researched in depth by the TTAPS team, including Carl Sagan, but criticized and refuted by later studies post the conflicts in Kuwait. there are always bands like Nuclear Assault, whose name says it all. Not all of the great tunes about the end of the world as we know it (not R.E.M.’s end of the world, thanks) come from that corner of the thunderdome.

When I served in the Navy years ago, I had the privilege of meeting all kinds of people from across the entire country I otherwise might not have met. Before the internet and all the social media, when we can connect with people across the country at any given moment, this was a huge deal, as they brought with them a lot of influences I might have otherwise missed.

One of these gents introduced me to Kate Bush, and I’ve been grateful ever since. Only recently did I find out how her early career intertwined with Pink Floyd, and the album The Wall served as a soundtrack staple for games that didn’t have one, like Wasteland. While I loved her music, I hadn’t really discovered the depth of her subject matter until I found her album, The Whole Story, a collection of songs from previous albums. “Breathing” is the single that addresses the effects of fallout after the bomb.

We’ve lost our chance
We’re the first and last
after the blast.
Chips of plutonium
are twinkling in every lung.

While not technically correct, the song is brilliant and so radical from the rest of the “he loves me, he loves me not” pop crap everyone else out there sang at the time. Her song Experiment IV is also worth a note too, not as post-nuclear but as a song about a weapon of mass destruction. A very young Hugh Laurie happens to be in the video as well.

Several years ago, a co-worker got me interested in Steve Wilson and his band, Porcupine Tree. The first album he allowed me to borrow, Stupid Dream, featured a song called “A Smart Kid.”

Winter lasted five long years
No sun will come again I fear
Chemical harvest was sown

The reference is to the purported nuclear winter* which would happen in the even of such a conflict, but there is also the reference of chemical warfare. The “kid” later tells aliens who came to visit that he doesn’t know what happened to the people but that there was a war and he “must have won.”

*This was researched in depth by the TTAPS team, including Carl Sagan, but criticized and refuted by later studies post the conflicts in Kuwait.